Sir Antoninus Nithilar,

It is with measured amusement that I welcome Mhaldor to the ranks of Empire, though you arrive not as the vanguard but as the third torchbearer in a procession you neither led nor defined. You trumpet your triumph from atop what you imagine to be the pinnacle, seemingly unaware that the mountain you ascend has already been climbed twice before. Third place is no small feat, of course. For this bold accomplishment, you have earned our recognition - though this path remains yours to define. Yet I offer you this: third is a respectable position for a city so consumed by its own brittle convictions.

In the shadow of your proclamation, I find myself compelled to answer the shrill echoes of your delusions. The Tyrannical Emperor, as you style yourself, offers much bluster but little substance, a chorus of self-congratulation performed to an audience weary of your stagnant refrain. Mhaldor's "Triumphant Empire of Baelgrim", a moniker as underthought as it is uninspired, bears all the hallmarks of a hollow triumph dressed in bloodied laurels.

You trumpet military supremacy as though conquest were the apex of ambition. But victory by brute force, by shackling will and scorning freedom, is the labor of a beast, not a visionary. You have burned shrines, razed forests, and scorned the myriad cities of Sapience, yet you offer nothing but more destruction. Tell me, Tyrannus, where is the creation in your so-called perfection? Where is the spark of ingenuity, the enduring legacy that will speak to ages yet unborn? Strength that is wielded to perpetuate nothing but fear is but a brittle scaffold, doomed to collapse under the weight of its futility.

Mhaldor's strength is not what you believe it to be. It is not forged of courage or conviction but fear and servitude, a brittle alloy that cracks when struck. Your rhetoric, draped in the banner of Evil, seeks to cow the world into compliance, but what it reveals is your own terror - terror that the world beyond your walls may grow wiser, stronger, unyielding to your doctrine.

Sapience, let this be clear: Ashtan sees through the pretense. Strength is not the tyranny of domination; it is the power to weave something greater. It is the audacity to reshape Creation itself, not to mutilate it. It is the will to rise above mere conquest, to ascend beyond the hollow cries of a desperate empire clinging to fleeting dominance.

Sir Nithilar, you stand upon your mountain and proclaim victory, but mountains erode, and winds of change will one day strip away the veneer of your supremacy. When that day comes, and your empire crumbles to ash, what will remain? Will you gaze upon the ruin you leave behind and call it perfection, or will you see it for what it is: the crumbled effigy of ambition without vision?

If there is any strength in this, it is in your willingness to follow where others have led. For that, we grant you your bronze laurels. Wear them well - they suit you.

~II

[X] Overseer Grandue Xeh'ria, Keeper of the Iron Crown

[A small octagon encircles a raised "II" here, inscribed in thick, amethyst ink]


Penned by my hand on the 6th of Miraman, in the year 966 AF.